Do you remember a time where a game of “cops and robbers” during school recess was treated as innocently as it was meant to be? If you are elementary school student Jordan Bennett, you don’t. Bennett was suspended from school for a day after playing that ‘deadly’ game in the school yard, which included the 8-year old forming his hand into the shape of a gun. The boy’s mother is fighting the suspension, but the damage has already been done.

In Virginia, two teenage boys were suspended for a year after playing with airsoft guns on their own property. A “concerned” neighbor called the police and successfully got these two kids on a long-term suspension (the neighbor must be proud of his or her stand against “gun violence”) after being charged with the possession, handling and use of a firearm. The charge was later changed to reflect the obvious, that these boys were not in possession of a firearm, but an airsoft gun. Their one year suspensions remain in effect, and their records will forever reflect the crime of, well, being kids.